Three six year olds

  Though the children outnumbered the parents by about three to one, when I arrived the parents were in remarkably good form. This form got better as time went on as someone had wrangled a bottle of gin and some tonic and was handing glasses out to the surviving parents. One of them had also brought some water balloons so the sprog could be entertained while the adults melted.

  This gave me the space I needed to unleash the gateau and spike it with candles before the semi-drenched monkeys were rounded up to witness the flame extinguishing ceremony. Once the infernos had safely succumbed to the mini hurricanes, the knife wielding maniac set about hacking the cake into neat little slices and distributing them to all those present.

  The gin pourer, from his perch in a corner, made the observation that on most occasions that a cake is handed out, it is generally way too nasty (normally too sweet), so it gets hidden surreptitiously under plant pots or discretely slipped into slobbering canines. 'This one though', he went on, 'is quite delicious'.

  Similar comments ensued and then the real complements began as one by one, a little trickle of minion sized beings appeared with chocolate smeared faces asking for seconds. Then the adults joined in. Fortunately I had made a massive cake so no one went without. It goes without saying that I was overjoyed to have made a cake that went down so well but I'll not be sharing the recipe with you. All you need to know is instead of 500 grams of sugar I used 350 and I made sure to put a big pinch of salt in.

  What I will do though is to give you a drink recipe or two. Gin and tonic goes better with elderflower so either use Fever tree elderflower tonic or even better, add a shot of St Germain, elderflower liquor. However, as summer is coming, let's do this properly. A kamikaze is vodka, triple sec and lime but the deluxe, (and far deliciouser), version uses a mix of three parts vodka, two parts Cointreau and one part St Germain with three parts lemon juice. You can top it with soda if you'd like a longer version or give it to the kids because you've run out of chocolate cake and need a bit of peace and quiet..

Kirk out

Chefsebastian.com